Statures in Han populations of China

<正>Dear Editor,Shortly after initiating the"Physical Anthropological Research on Han Chinese"research project,we applied uniform sampling methods as well as methods and instruments of measurement to obtain a complete set of measurements of physical anthropological indicators among Han populations across China.Among these measurements,body stature was a key indicator.Currently,there should be reliable     

A new chapter for China's public health security——aids offered to Africa to combat Ebola

<正>As one of the most deadly diseases,the outbreak of Ebola virus disease(EVD)is causing panic in West Africa and posing alarms globally.Since the re-emergence of EVD,China authority has been consistently providing support for Africa in its fight against Ebola.On September 16,2014,a laboratory testing team and a medical team,consisting of 59public health experts and medical staffers,were dispatched to assist local hospitals in West African countries to set up lab screening and clinical treatment of EVD(http://www.taiwan.cn/xwzx/Technology/201409/t20140917_7354545.     

An Effective Method for Raising Antisera Against β-defensins: Double-copy Protein Expression of mBin1b in E. coli

Defensins are a family of evolutionarily relatedvertebrate antimicrobial peptides with a characteristicβ-sheet-rich fold and a framework of six disulphide-linkedcysteines. The two main defensin subfamilies, α- andβ-defensin, differ in the length of pep…     

Book Review书评

由沈阳农业大学王小奇、方红、张治良教授主编的《辽宁甲虫原色图鉴》于2012年由辽宁科学技术出版社出版,以图鉴形式记述了分布于辽宁的鞘翅目昆虫71科829种,其中31个中国新记录种,124个辽宁省新记录种。全书分为两部分,第一部分是甲虫成虫的形态特征,简要概述了甲虫头、胸、腹部的外部形态特征;第二部分是分类,包括成虫的分科检索表和按科排列的各论部分。书     

The impact of special issues

With support from many authors from many different scientific fields,Zoological Research(ZR)successfully released eight special issues from 2011 to 2014 on various topics,including Animal Ecology and Resources,Animal Genetic Diversity,Development and Evolution,Fish Diversity and Primates and Animal Models of Human Diseases.These special issues strongly align with our aims and scope,which have been     

Genetic divergence among geographical populations of the migratory locust in China

The migratory locust, Locusta migratoria L., which is distributed widely in the East Hemisphere, has long been regarded as the most important agricultural pest and a model insect. Its distribution ranges from thetropic and the subtropical zone, to the temperate zone, and to the cold-temperate zone. Because of the wide geographical distribution and adaptations, many geo- graphical populations of the migratory locust dis- played apparent variation in morphology, life history, physiology, and ot…     

Alien DNA introgression and wheat DNA rearrangements in a stable wheat line derived from the early generation of distant hybridization

In general, it requires five or more generations to develop a stable line by the traditional breeding method of cultivar hybrids in self-pollinated crops, such as wheat, barley, and rice. No doubt, the breeding period will be shortened and thus the breeding effi-ciency will be improved if the hybrids can stabilize in early generation. The method of haploid breeding, that is, obtaining stable pure lines (DH lines) of cultivar hybrids with the aid of anther culture and then chro-mosome doubling,…     

Comparative analysis of the pig BAC sequence involved in the regulation of myostatin gene

Myostatin (GDF-8, MSTN) is a member of trans- forming growth factors (TGF-β) superfamily, which was first described by McPherron et al. in 1997[1]. Myostatin appears to act as a negative regulator of muscle development and controls not only fibre size but also fibre number[2,3]. Mutations in the third exon of the myostatin gene have been shown to cause dou- ble muscling in cattle[4]. By knocking out the gene of myostatin in mice, they were able to show that the transgenic mice developed …